1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to the adjustment of display parameters, and more specifically to a user interface for the adjustment of display parameters.
2. Description of the Related Art
Manufacturers of display devices generally support user controls for the adjustment of display parameters. For example, conventional display devices often have a manual user interface for adjusting the brightness and contrast of the display. In addition, many software image editors include user interfaces for altering display parameters, such as hue, chroma and saturation.
Typically, such user interfaces are arranged with controls that adjust one parameter at a time. For example, typical display adjustment user interfaces may include increment/decrement buttons or slider bars. Adjustment of display parameters with such interfaces often require multiple user interactions (e.g. multiple mouse clicks) as most users will adjust multiple parameters on the display device. In addition, such user interfaces do not provide an indication to the user as to what effect each change of a display parameter will have on the display. As such, display adjustment often becomes a case of trial and error, and can become cumbersome and inefficient.
In particular, adjustment of display parameters for digital radiographic images can become difficult, as both level and window settings may be required to be adjusted. Window and level are terms used in digital radiography to define the range and center of range of grayscale pixels displayed in an image. Window and level are sometimes used synonymously with contrast and brightness. Since conventional display adjustment user interfaces require that the level and window settings be adjusted independently, the number of adjustment iterations can become numerous. Attempts have been made to create and store explicit window and level settings that may be selected from a menu. However, these settings are typically arbitrarily assigned, and do not provide an indication to the user as to the effect the selected values will have on the display.
In view of the difficulty of using conventional user interfaces for adjustment of display parameters, it is desirable to have a more efficient and intuitive user interface.